Feedback: Soul Guard Saint
by Hieda no Akyuu
Summary: To whoever reads this: how are you still alive on this world?
1. Break 1

**A while ago, in another of my stories titled L.L.C, I mentioned a video series that I had started on my Youtube channel by the same name. Since then, it has not been updated, and in order to revive it somehow, I decided to continue it here on Fanfiction. The more the merrier, they said.  
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**Thanks for reading,**

**-Akyuu no Joshu**

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**February 5****th****, 2013.**

My mom's always told me to keep a journal. For years up til now, I refused. Journals are a waste of time, I thought. Why bother keeping records of the boring, listless days of high school that end up being the same in this stupid fucking sleepy town…nothing to do, nothing to see. I was always the kind of guy who'd always be on the lookout for a good bit of fun – not the alcoholic kind where people would bang Jaeger bombs in the back parking lot of the school and puke their damned heads off with no other thought but blazing 420s up their asses – but looking to see if people were getting into fights, getting some thrills. Town was boring, life was boring, studying was boring. Being Asian in a hyper-educationally minded environment is draining, and for a guy who wants subtle moments of badass injected into his life here and there, it's everything I can do not to go stir shit up on my own. Because if I did, at least I'd have something to write about in a stupid journal.

After coming back from a year of college, I've now got a reason to leave some of my memories behind. Something's happening, and I don't know what. A thrill alright – but not a thrill I think I want to experience.

Back on topic. Like I said, shit's going down in this town. I don't know what. But you can feel it in the atmosphere. Like someone's trying to deepthroat you in your sleep. Something big's gonna hit. I noticed it's not just me. I've consulted with a few friends – most don't indicate it, but there are a few who agree with me that they've been feeling the same shit. Even on the faces of complete strangers, I can tell. It's easy to tell. Their eyebrows frowned down, teeth clenched, always on edge – I had this one lady who worked at the public library jump nearly her height in the air and drop all the books she was carrying on the floor when I cleared my throat to get her attention, and she's been working there for years. I know she's not someone to jump like that. Usually never gets frightened by anything.

One thing I've noticed that everyone who's being spooked right now has in common is the fact that we've all seen people die. Not like some simple shit like going to a funeral and seeing the open casket. One of my friends was in a car accident when she was little, and she was in the backseat directly behind the driver and her mom was driving. Truck smashed into driver's seat, saw the bent grill go straight through her mom's neck. Spine and blood everywhere, apparently, is what I've heard. Obviously she never wants to talk about that. Another friend of mine was in a fire 'cause he got stuck with another person who was watching a movie next to him, complete stranger. They were sitting in the furthest seats from the screen, fire flares up, and the stranger dude tried escaping by himself even though my friend told him it wasn't safe. Flaming beam falls right down on him, and my friend gets to watch him burn. Brutal shit like that that'll definitely leave a mark.

And in case you're wondering what I saw, it's complicated. I saw myself die. I don't remember all of it since they told me my brain got hit with so much trauma afterwards during the recovery process that it forced me to forget, but what I do recall is holding my right arm with my left hand and seeing it in a broken mirror. Obviously that ain't so bad compared to some of the shit I know my friends've seen. But it's quite an experience holding a dismembered limb of yours and not knowing how you ended up like that.

Needless to say, I'm supposed to be dead, so I guess that has something to do with this whole shit.

Sigh…how should I say this…it's frying our nerves. You know how you're all hyped up and excited for a new Call of Duty title to be released? All them Youtubers puttin' out reveal trailers or whatever the fuck they do to generate hype for the next COD? Yeah, kinda like that. But you're not looking forward to it because you're enjoying it, you're looking forward to it because you just want to know what the fuck is going on. It's the anticipation of fear, and we're the lucky fanboys and fangirls who get to get fucked by it in the end. Sounds 'bout right, eh?

Other than that, there haven't been any more signs. For now, those of us who do feel this premonition or whatever have decided to just be on the lookout for any suspicious crap. Some of them're even arming themselves. I don't blame 'em. This shit's been goin' on for days now. So if it ain't gonna stop any time soon, better man up and prepare our anuses.

Heh…as for me…

I might not know what's going down, and maybe I won't like what's about to go down, but I'm sure glad as hell I got what I wished for.


	2. Break 2

**February 7****th****, 2013.**

Whoever said journals needed to be daily needs to go eat shit.

In other news, I found one of my high school friends, Martin, with his big kitchen knife through his jugular in his house. Big ol' bloodstain on the floor, to boot. I was wondering when he'd give out – he's one of those guys who're real sensitive to this shit. When this whole situation started, he was the first to start freakin' out. We tried calming him down, but most of us, including me, knew he wouldn't last much longer.

Other than Martin's suicide, shit's escalating real fast. Who was it…Lauren, I think it was, her eyes are going out. Her eyesight is extraordinarily good, I think someone mentioned it was like, what, 30 over 20? But she's going blind. She says instead of things going blurry, she feels like she's getting dunked in darkness, like those people who get slowly dunked into a vat of tar like in medieval days. At least, that's what she says. And she's not one to exaggerate shit, either. So now 'cause of this, now everyone's worried outta their fucking minds. And at the rate at which Lauren's eyes're going blind, she says she'll be in complete darkness in about a week. Time to write our wills, for as much good they'll do us.

More of a personal update here. For the past two days, I've been running, working out. I've done three years of cross country back in high school, and that training we got there's pretty much made my runner's stamina permanent. I know there won't be a lot of improvement in only a few days, but at least a few days' warmup is better than none. Also stocking up on lots of long-term food. Like the shit you get in case of an earthquake or some other stupid natural disaster or something. Like they say, you can't ever be too prepared.

But what's got _me_ concerned is my gunskill. Back in high school, I used to take shooting lessons through 4-H. Shot 22's, pistols, rifles. Even shot a shotgun once. But I was never really too good at it, even if I wanted to be. But I go down to the shooting range yesterday with the M1911 my friend gave me before he died of stage 4 lung cancer 'bout two months ago, and I'm hitting bulleyes on the targets, over and over. I'm pretty sure it's not the gun itself. Even if I put out the targets at their max ranges of…what was it, 50 meters?...I'm just doin' work. I think I only missed like 2 bullseyes out of…how many mags did I shoot…eight or so? I dunno if I should be freaked out by that or excited. It's just…weird. Not much else to it.

It's like we're all getting superpowers or something. At least, that's what I think. But if they' supposed to be superpowers, why are there people like Lauren who're getting hurt? Is that supposed to be their own superpowers? I can't stop thinking about it, especially what's happening to Lauren, in particular. We have enough on our fucking heads trying not to blow our heads off, and she has to slowly watch herself go blind in the middle of it. For fuck's sake, how much dick has to be sucked to reverse that? I'd fucking hate it, not gonna lie.

Whatever I need to do to go to sleep every night knowing I at least have a chance to fight back against…whatever the fuck we need to fight against. Sacrificing my sanity in order to live just a little longer, by this point, is a small price to pay, given I didn't really consider myself to have a sanity to begin with. Reminds me of the Patriot Act, heh. This country's taught us well.


	3. Break 3

**February 10****th****, 2013**

Lauren went blind today.

I should explain who's involved in this quagmire. Couple of us involved in this little…group of ours. Me, Lauren, Steven, Chuck, Big, and Jenna. We all went to the same high school, same class of 2012. It was our lunch group, basically. Coincidence that all of us are feelin' this paranormal shit? Pretty sure it's not, but whatever. I could give you a map and tell you to go find all the fucks I give about superstition and all that crap, and you'd never be able to find any. I'm just pretty thankful everyone who's involved, I know personally, so we have that trust aspect going on. Martin, who offed himself a few days ago, was our friend, yeah, but…he was like the awkward bird of our little posse. Since Lauren can't see jack shit anymore, she's living with Jenna for the time being, since they're close buddies.

Should I talk about everyone in detail…? Yeah, yeah, I will. So let's start with…uh, Lauren, I suppose. She's a quiet girl. Kinda like me, she doesn't really talk much. Like one of those kinds of people who only talk if they're talked to or when they need to. She's not shy, per se, but she'd rather keep to people she knows well or, if there's no one around, just to herself. Like I mentioned before, she had insane eyesight before she went blind – I remember on one of our sophomore class field trips, she spotted the tallest roller coaster at Six Flags nearly forty miles out on our way there. We'd give her those stupid eyecharts, like the ones they have you read at optometrists to gauge how bad your eyes are, and she'd get them all right. I think she's really into cooking and being a philosophy major. Suits her, if you ask me. Now, after all this…shit's been going down, she's even more quiet. She hasn't said a word about how she feels 'bout losing her eyesight. Like she's accepted the fact that time is running out for her…and that there's nothing she can do. She has to wear bandages around her eyes, because apparently earlier today, according to Jenna, Lauren's eyes began to bleed. When eyes start hemorrhaging, that's never a good sign. It's only a little bit of blood, but still, Jenna's freaking out about it. Being Lauren's best friend, she can't stand seeing her own friend suffer like this. But even then, Lauren's a fucking statue. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have massive respect for her. Because I do.

Perfect segway into talkin' 'bout Jenna. Jenna's pretty much the opposite of Lauren. Bubbly, effervescent, I think the word is?, just in general a super-cheerful person. If you ever need like, someone to cheer you up, she can do it like it's her fucking job. Makes sense that she's the dimwit and clown of our little group, along with Chuck, who's also a clown but less of an idiot, I guess. At least, she _was_ that way 'til Lauren got screwed last week by this paranormal shit. Now, she's uber-frickin' protective of Lauren, almost to the point where none of the rest of us can see her unless she knows about it. She really wants Lauren to get better. We've talked to her already, telling her that, y'know, there's…probably not a chance in hell Lauren is gonna get outta this one alive, and she's accepted that. But as long as Lauren is still breathing, I'm pretty sure Jenna's gonna blow up Everest if that's what she's gotta do to keep Lauren from dying.

Chuck…Chuck's an odd one. Definitely an oddball, yup. He's crazy 'bout firearms, has a whole collection of pistols 'n civvie rifles at his place. Wants ta move outta Cali so he can legally own full autos. I don't blame him, either, since I'm kind of a gun nut myself, but I don't walk around telling folks that one of my two life goals is to one day be the proud owner of an AN94 that was once formerly owned by a Russian Spetznaz, the other one being fending off a zombie apocalypse with said gun. Like I said, kind of a nutjob. But he's a lot like me: straightforward, honest to the point of rudeness, just a lot, lot more outspoken. He's always down for a fun time, and if he can't find a good time, he'll make one himself. We've had incidents of having to stop him from torching his own house. A pain, but he's a fun dude. At least he's really interesting and tries his best not to piss anyone else off.

So 'bout Big, there's a reason why we call him Big, and it's not 'cause of his dick. It's 'cause of his balls. This guy's got just 'bout the biggest balls of any Chinese-Englishman on this side of the West Coast. Weird composition, I know. He's not particularly big size-wise, but…damn. He's not a badass, but if he needs to fight, he doesn't give a flying shit about who he needs to fight. He got into deep shit once with our high school administration once for kicking the absolute fuck outta one of the senior football jocks almost twice his height and definitely more than twice his body mass back when we were freshmen. I heard he did that 'cause that senior dude told him he was a nerdy ass chink who needed to go back to China or whatever Oriental pisshole he was from. Big got 'im sent to the ER, and now that dude can't use his right leg properly anymore, not to mention his entire ribcage was broken. Remember, if the glasses come off, Big's gonna kick your ass. Everyone in school learned that real quick. He never had to take his glasses off another time.

And finally…Steven. Shit, man. His mind's even darker than mine. You could say we've got similar personalities, true. Actually, in fact, we're pretty similar in virtually every aspect of our identities. We think alike, have similar interests, wear glasses, same height, similar look, we could pass for brothers if we insisted, damn. Heh, brothas from 'notha mothas, as Chuck calls us. He's my best man, all there is to it. Where we're different comes with what we do, though. I mentioned before that his mind's a lot darker than mine, so mentally he can stomach a lotta shit. But it comes down ta actually doing what we say, he's more conservative. He ain't a coward, but sometimes I just feel like he doesn't have the balls ta back up what he says. He's just gotta prove himself, I s'pose, but…then again, who am I ta say this?

In any case, ever since Lauren started ta go blind, everyone's been on edge. We haven't changed much 'cept Jenna, but we're prepared for the worst. Chuck asked me if I wanted him to put a bullet in my head if shit hit the fan, but I declined. That bullet's probably better used on someone else who needs it more than I do. They haven't changed much…not yet, anyway.


	4. Break 4

**February 15th, 2013.**

Last time I recall, I ain't no fucking babysitter.

So I was walking back from the bank. Had to go there to take care of some bank account issues with my mom's old debit stuff, and since she's dead, I'm the only one who can clear it up, obviously. But I walk back home, and I decide to take a detour. I'm big on listening to music. I get lost in it, in the music, I mean. If my mood's right, I can walk the entire bay here listening to my iPod. So I was in the mood, I guess. I take a detour from my usual path home and walk towards a park near my old middle school, to a park called Highridge. Now, mind you, normally, at this time, like around five or six-ish or so, people would be out and about playing soccer or hanging out, walking dogs or whatever the fuck people usually do at a park. But now, with this whole shit going down, nobody's in that mood anymore. The park was deserted when I got there. Well, almost. But the point is, at a time when people should've been there, for there to be a random girl about my age to be lying in the grass right in the middle of the soccer field kind of made me go what the fuck.

You know how I could tell that girl wasn't normal? Her clothes! Her fucking clothes! Who the hell wears that shit?! That's a Japanese shrine maiden costume or whatever, some variation of it! Like, I'm into anime, don't get me wrong, but see, the reason why I like watching anime is because I know for a fact that anime will stay anime, and that my life will keep the same reality that it's known. I mean, that's the whole point of anime, isn't it? For us to imagine, for us to see how our world could've been different. But we as humans, generally speaking, are fine with shit the way it is, right? So why the fuck I am keeping that girl I found unconscious in the middle of the park in my house, in my room, in my bed, right behind me!?

Whatever, I've exaggerated those last two paragraphs. I'm not really that surprised as I might've sounded. Hey, I mean, it's a lot better putting my eyes on the hottest girl I've ever seen in my life than on the head of a former friend who decided to take the easy way out. That fucking douche. Anyway, lemme write down everything that's in my mind before I forget. I dunno what'll happen within the few months to come, but I feel like whatever I put down here is gonna be important. Somehow.

So she was still knocked out when I went over to her. She was bruised up badly, and bleeding all over the place, not too seriously but enough to make anyone else call the ambulance. But calling 911 is too fucking complicated, 'cause I knew she isn't some ordinary person who just so happened to pass out in the middle of a park with blood all over her arms and legs and her stomach nearly ripped wide open. So I carried her right back home - she was way lighter than I'd thought.

So I bring her home to patch her up. Today's the one day that I can claim to legally strip a girl without her permission, but I'm not proud of that to be honest. Luckily, her body managed to heal itself for the most part - all I did was bandage her and wipe the blood off her skin where they were, and her conditioned stabilized. I replaced the bandages about an hour after I put the first set on, and her cuts were gone. Thank God, too, 'cause if it turned out she needed stitches, I'm fucked.

About an hour ago, she woke up. So after talking a little bit, I found out a couple things. First, her name's Reimu Hakurei. She's a shrine maiden. She comes from some place called Gensokyou; apparently it's the alternate world of Earth, at least it sounds like what's she's talking about.

Now this is the part that really got me hooked, as if all this hadn't done just that already. About a few months ago, she said, Gensokyou was attacked. She said that they didn't know who attacked them at first; some black goo shit, she said, started infesting Gensokyou. Then, just a few weeks ago, the goo stuff, which Reimu referred to as "Corruption", started eating away at something called the Hakurei Dai Kekkai, which apparently is a barrier that helps protect Gensokyou from outside influences. That matches up with the whole depressing mood shit that's hit this town; it's about the same timing. During all that time, Reimu and her friends had been fighting back the best they could against the Corruption, but it just overran everything too quickly by the sounds of it. What had first started out as total war against that Corruption stuff with everyone living in Gensokyou fighting against it eventually got scraped down to just Reimu and a small group of survivors; the Corruption had killed off everyone else - either that, or, what's more interesting to me, they got assimilated. Somehow. Reimu didn't go into detail about how her friends got "taken over" by the Corruption. I guess it's a tad bit too traumatic for her to recall as of right now.

Then, she said that earlier this morning, her shrine, which was the last little base they had that hadn't been touched by the Corruption yet, finally went down. She says that two people attacked them then. A guy and a girl, presumably a couple by the sound of it. She says it looked like the guy was manipulating the Corruption, so at least we know who's in charge of it. She says they didn't put up much of a fight - no, sorry, bad wording on my part. They couldn't put up a fight. One of Reimu's comrades called Yukari, according to Reimu, saved her by sending her over to the other side, meaning here on Earth. She doesn't know what happened to her friends, but when I asked her if she had an idea, she didn't answer me.

I'll safely assume that they're all dead now.

What she did tell me, though, was that the Hakurei Dai Kekkai is to be assumed destroyed, along with the existence of Gensokyou. She says that most likely, the two who attacked them will come for her soon here on Earth. She's a sole survivor, I suppose, and from the sounds of it, we're next to die. Oh, that's comforting to know, isn't it? Shieeeeeet.

I almost don't even want to write about this part, but, against my better judgment I will. Reimu spoke in Japanese. I took four years of it in school, along with complementary courses at a nearby community college and some more at uni so I understand enough to carry out a little more than a long conversation. It also seems that she knows a little English herself, which is good since there're still some vocab that I don't yet know. But while I was talking to her, she's a complete fucking wreck. It's to the point where she just doesn't want to live - no, that's not right, that's not it. She's like me - we _almost_ don't give a fuck if we die tomorrow. Almost. Her more so than me, since whatever she's gone through during the past few months I can't even begin to judge. But for her, she feels obligated to continue the fight, until she does die. It's like that guy who got his arm stuck by a boulder while he was hiking. But at least that dude had _a _knife, even if it was a crappy one. Reimu doesn't even have a knife. Either she'll die there of thirst, or someone else has to come along to find her and roll that boulder away, and even then her arm's still probably gonna rot and decay by then because of the stoppage of blood flow.

So I tried to comfort her, hug her a little. I'ma say this right now, I've never felt so fucking awkward in my fucking life. Hugging a girl after she's told you all that she's been through in a matter of months because you don't know what to say to that or what to say to her. But I know why I hugged her, and I already mentioned it earlier. Her state of mind is pretty much identical to mine. To me, I know that eventually, even if I hadn't met her, I'd regress into that kind of a state of mind. I already mentioned this before, if you're affected by this kind of depressing atmosphere in this town, there's no way you'll last forever. So I hugged her and stayed like that for a little bit. I didn't really care if she pushed me off her or something, it's really just a selfish thing for me to do and I knew it perfectly. But she didn't do anything. Maybe it's because she didn't mind that a complete random stranger was trying to be altruistic and nice to her after what's she's seen and done for what probably seems like years to her. Maybe she wanted at least a little bit of kindness being shown to her. Or, maybe I'm being a stupid little shit and being too optimistic. I think she knew what I was thinking when I did hug her. Maybe she's the one pitying me, knowing what'll happen to this world as well now that she's here. They say that you can tell a lot about what people are thinking just by looking at their eyes, but hers were empty, so hell if I know what's going through her mind. And I'm not gonna sit here guessing. I'm just gonna say that I couldn't tell who was comforting who.

She's sleeping now. I'm starting to think weird things now. Remember how I said Reimu was fucking hot? I retract that. She's just beautiful, even if she's covered in goddamn bandages.

Too much going through my head right now. I'll need some time to think about everything. Especially what I'm going to do, and especially what I really want.


	5. Break 5

**February 16th, 2013.**

Long day today, lots to write before I forget any of it like I always do. Have I mentioned that I'm a self-diagnosed short-term memory loss patient? Don't ask me when I did the prognosis, I forgot already.

This morning, Reimu's wounds turned out to be basically fully healed. Not very surprising. So I explained to her about our town, you know, just giving her the synopsis of what's been happening here. Suicides, overall soul-crushingly depressing mood, whatever. She didn't say much while I was explaining. And so I told her that there were some friends of mine that knew that something bad was happening, and that I wanted her to meet 'em. We were originally gonna meet up anyway at my place, so I thought might as well have Reimu in our little meet up. I can't just hide Reimu from the others anyway, that's just a douchy thing to do. Luckily, Reimu said she didn't mind if I introduced her to my friends. I'm sure she knows that she can't be kept a secret forever, either.

So at noon today, or around anyway 'cause people came late, we got together here. I forgot to mention that even though Reimu's injuries healed, she's still a bit too weak to walk just yet; she said that she'd be fine within a couple of days, so hopefully she's right; anyways, I had to carry her downstairs. Thank God she's so light, even though she's only a little bit shorter than me. I introduce her, 'n right away Chuck in his thick Indian accent and broken English whistles at her, and to my goddamn surprise, I actually got pissed off.

Now let me explain why that's so important - to me, anyway. Chuck, you see, is a transfer student from India. He's a fucking jock, even if he never played a yard of football in his life - like, as in he's a real health and fitness junkie. Natural segway into the fact that he's also kind of a playboy. Even in high school, even in fucking high school. I hear he picks up girls left and right at college, too. I didn't mind that fact, not at all up 'til now. But let me tell you, when he whistled at Reimu then, I wanted to slit his fucking throat right then and there. And the only reason why I didn't do it was because I was too scared to do it, too scared by my lack of understanding of why I wanted to kill him. So I didn't do anything and sat there like an absolute autistic dumbfuck watching my friend make catcalls to a girl who might've died if I hadn't found her yesterday when I did.

Normally, if I'm angry, I know exactly why I'm mad. I've always looked down upon those kinds of people who have those petty anger fits or people who get agitated for no apparent reason. You know why? Those kinds of people are either retarded or too spoiled in life to know what true anger or rage is. Mind you, the town I live in is a pretty damn well-off town; I so happen to live in the less-prominent part of town, but while I attended high school here, I met plenty of self-entitled silver-spoon-fucking-their-throats bastards. Normally they're cool 'n all, but in case something ever goes off plan, like some class project getting in the way of their dates or hangouts with friends at the mall, they throw fucking tantrums. That's absolutely laughable. So a class project is worth your time and effort getting mad over just because it fucked your little hangout schedule with your friends? So you can't spend the weekend smoking pot in the back alley of the mall because you need to sit your ass down at your desk at home mulling over how to figure out the fundamental theorem of calculus? Just thinking about it pisses me off. Because if that's really the case, you fuckers know nothing about what it takes or what it means to truly be in rage. I suppose if they did feel true anger, they'd just melt. Yeah, that's not so far-fetched as I thought, actually.

Point is, I don't get pissed off by many things, in fact it's kinda hard to get me angry in the first place. But if I see any one thing that I really don't like, that's it - I'm fucking raging the rest of the day. Chuck whistling at Reimu set me off, and that's the first time in a really, really fucking long time I got pissed without knowing why.

Have I gone on a rant again? Motherfucker.

So we start talking. I explained Reimu's situation so everyone understands. Everyone seemed to buy it; like me, they, too, thought that it fits with what's been happening to this town. Then, Steven brought up something that spooked the living shit out of all of us, well, except for Reimu.

Steven said that yesterday at around the same time I came across Reimu at Highridge Park, he was walking back from Ralphs' from grocery shopping when he saw something that looked like a zombie. He described it like a zombie-esque humanoid thing that walked kinda slowly towards him. He also said that he noticed it only walked after him, even though there were other people around. Everyone else around him apparently didn't even notice that there was a motherfucking black zombie thing walking around like a drunk fuck in broad daylight, so we'll assume those things are stuff only we can see. Since Steven packs a tracker knife on him at all times, he shanked the zombie thing through its neck and lopped the thing's head off, and it melted back into a mass of black goop 'n sank back into the ground.

I didn't even need Reimu then to know that what Steven killed then was the Corruption bullshit that she'd told me 'bout. Damn, I'm good, aren't I?

Obviously everyone else made the same connection too. It was clear that the Corruption had already made its way here.

\(^o^)/

Reimu said that she might be the reason why Corruption showed up. She said it wouldn't surprise her if the guy controlling the Corruption in Gensokyou had sent it after her to kill her and finish what he started over on the other side. Big suggested we just sacrifice her to the Corruption stuff. Some people kinda giggled awkwardly, but I think Big was serious. I don't blame him, either; if Corruption's the stuff that's making this town the way it is, then maybe feeding Reimu to it would stop it and return our town back to normal so we don't have to live like we're survivors in some post-apocalyptic crap. But while the sentiment was solid, I'm not letting Reimu out of my sight. Not for now, at least.

We talked 'bout what we'd do against it, should we come across one of those zombie things again. I mean, by now everyone's been carrying 'round some sort of, you know, form of self defense. Steven's got a pocket knife, I've got my M1911, Big's got some sorta weird mechanism in his sleeves that pulls out underslung knife blades sorta like what they do in Assassin's Creed, Chuck's got his own array of firearms as usual (I think today he brought in a Desert Eagle, it looked like it through his shirt), and Lauren's got Jenna, who's got her entire house rigged with traps that I dunno how or where she learned to make. For now, I think we're all safe, seeing how easily Steven was able to kill his zombie.

That's when Jenna told us that she had seen another zombie-like black thing, like the one Steven had seen earlier today. She said that she didn't remember exactly when, but she was driving back home from the community college about thirty minutes' drive away, and while she was waiting at an intersection, she saw someone on the sidewalk fall down to his knees as he was walking. Strange thing was, she said, no one noticed him in his apparent pain, 'cause he was groaning and moaning, and soon he was screaming like a madman. Then, she said, the guy just morphed into a black zombie kinda thing, right as her intersection lights turned green. She said she didn't know what happened to it since.

For now, we've decided to start getting together every few days or so to make sure none of us're missing all of a sudden. We think that for now, we're the only ones who can see those zombie things, but we'll be asking around to double check. We've also agreed to meet at my place in case anything goes down, since I'm almost always at home anyway and my house is pretty much dead center relative to everyone else's homes.

Personally, going off of what Jenna mentioned, if actual people are the ones being turned into those zombies, for lack of a better term, I feel like the people who can see them for whatever damn reason will be the only ones left, eventually. Who knows how long that'll take. Maybe they'll turn one at a time, or maybe they'll start turning all at once. Whichever the case, I feel like we need to find as many people as we can who can see what we see. I don't even know if there are more of us out there in our town alone, but it's worth a try.

I'm pretty glad Chuck brought me lots of boxes of .45 ACP rounds the other day. I've asked him to bring more, and he said he'd ship me an entire box of firearms.

After everyone left, I made some lunch for me and Reimu. Since she's still recovering, I decided to make a big lunch, a lot bigger than what I'd ever make for myself. Double-grilled salmon spiced with negi slices and soy sauce, egg, bacon, and apple omelet (it's better than it sounds, trust me, my mom taught me how to use apples in cooking), and Korean seaweed soup, called mi-yuk-guk. Honestly, it's the best meal I've ever made for myself, or for anyone else for that matter, in a really long fucking while. And apparently, when I served it to Reimu, she thought so, too, because she just burst into tears right in front of me as soon as she realized how much food I had made for us.

Let me ask you, as a single guy who's never really had experience in dealing with the opposite gender in terms of emotional trainrides, what would you do? Keep in mind that I've never gone on dates, I've never bothered going out to proms or events like that, or in general socializing with women, not because I swing _that_ way, but because I've never really felt I'm worth anyone's time. I'm not humble, mind you, either. I honestly don't think that I should bother anyone else with the person I am right now - I don't really have any special qualities that, you know, girls would look for whenever they go out on dates with guys. I dunno; I just didn't care for those kinds of things. That's not what I do. Besides, I have had a girlfriend in the past, but it didn't end well, nothing against her. Just our circumstances didn't allow us to be together for very long. Naturally, this self-imposed isolation deprived me of the knowledge that I really needed to deal with the cutest girl I've ever had the privilege of seeing, let alone housing, absolutely bawling her eyes out right in front of me across the dinner table. I guess this is what Japan felt like when Perry came chuggin' across the Pacific with his steamboat. Except it'd be the exact opposite feeling.

I asked her what was wrong, but she kept crying for like ten minutes straight, so I felt like she ignored me completely. So I pulled up my chair next to hers to sit next to her and put her head on my shoulder. That's what my older brother used to do when I was feeling down...when he was still alive. I didn't know what else to do at the moment. It just felt like the natural thing to do. So we stayed like that until she calmed down enough to actually talk.

So I asked her why she just randomly bawled like that, and she simply said that she hadn't had this kind of a meal for the past three months, and that it reminded her of her own cooking that she used to do back home. But what kinda unnerved me was when she said she wished her friends could've been with her too.

Remember how yesterday I wrote that I assumed all her friends were dead? The feels, man, the fucking feels.

I asked her if she knew if any of her friends also made it out. This time, she replied that if any of them did make it out, she'd know by now. So far, none had. This time, when I asked her how big the chance of her being the only survivor was, she said it probably was the only outcome. Well, shit.

After our rather late lunch, I carried her up to my bed and tucked her in again. But before I left the room, she called out my name. That's the first time she's done that, mind you. Up 'til then, every time we had talked, it was because I was talking to her first. She asked me why I was taking care of her like this, even though we barely knew each other. She said I had no reason to treat her so kindly like this, saying that it was better to have left her in that park to bleed to death, saying that letting her die was probably the better choice that I should've taken. That's when I completely went off.

I basically screamed my fucking heart out at her until she was cowering underneath my pillow, and that whole time I didn't even notice. The death of my family. The time when my younger sister died in my arms. The frustrations I had all throughout life, having to deal with the pains of growing up without a family. Multiple depressions I've had, along with the ultimate realization that I was destined to live and die alone. About all the fights I'd gotten myself into, both in middle and high school, because there were points where my anger was too great to be contained. Beating people to not even an inch from their deaths, sending dozens of people to the hospital. The one time where I tried to end it all but failed because I realized I was too pathetic and scared to even take my own life. I yelled at her that the reason why I was taking care of her so was because not only did she remind me of my late sister but because she was stuck in a position where she was alone, dying, with no one else to turn to for help, and I wanted to get her out of it, get her out of the hell of solitude, save her from one of the most horrible deaths that anyone could have, the death of dying alone. I screamed at her that this was all selfish shit that I did, that I kept her alive largely because I wanted to feel self-righteous and didn't want to live with the guilt of knowing I chose to walk away from someone who needed immediate help and whose situation no one else would be able to understand otherwise. I screamed at her that she, from what I could see, was who I was before I became who I am now.

It's amazing what one sentence can do to a person. One fucking simple sentence, one "you should've done something else" comment is enough to draw the life story out of any one person if you push them to the edge just enough. Because honestly, if you ask me, those kinds of "oh, you should've done this instead of what you actually did" are the dumbest pieces of trash comments that anyone who wasn't fucking dropped on the head when they were babies can think of to say. You know why? Because when people make those kinds of comments, they automatically assume they know what happened in your life to make themselves believe they have the outrageous privilege to judge your action, _based on solely their assumptions alone._ Like, are you fucking serious? Are you just ignorant, or are you really that fucking self-entitled and full of shit that you think you can say that what I did was the wrong choice?

And after all this, I'm honored to experience the pleasure of feeling like the world's biggest fucking douchebag for making a girl like her cower like that underneath my covers, in my bed. This is what rapists do, don't they? Well shit, I might as well go kill myself now for reals.

So after I'm done ranting my ass off and realizing that I've become the biggest cuntbag the world has ever known, I just hear Reimu whisper one single word underneath my pillow. "Sorry."

Sorry?

_Sorry?_

**_SORRY?_**

Sorry for what? For the fact that you watched your home get corroded and eaten away by this Corruption shit? For the fact that you watched your friends die one by one to that shit? For the fact that no matter what you did, you still couldn't defend your home, even though you tried your best? For the fact that you alone survived while everyone else got killed?

For the fact that it's my fault that I wasn't able to hold myself back just because she said something that I know perfectly well isn't her fault for saying?

You're sorry for _that?_

Unbelievable.

Just fucking unbelievable.

You know what's even more unbelievable? The fact that I climbed into the bed with her and hugged her, even more so than I did yesterday.

As she was crying into my shirt, I couldn't help but think how my life would've been different had she been here in my world all this time. Hell, I don't even know if she's even telling any sort of truth. But she's not lying. If she was, Martin would still be alive, and this town wouldn't feel like making me stick a .44 down my throat.

I'm such an asshole.

And as much as I tell myself that I don't care if Reimu thinks that way too, deep down inside I know that I don't want her to think that way. There's a massive difference between saying and doing asshole-ish things and actually being an asshole.

I could care less if I made a guy cry by yelling at them, 'cause I've done it before. But I can't believe I just did that to Reimu, of all people.

What the fuck is wrong with me. No, that's not even a question. I know exactly what the fuck's wrong with me.

Hopefully I don't do this ever again. Once is bad enough.

I fucking hate myself. And the fact that I just noticed pisses me off even more.


	6. Break 6

**February 17th, 2013.**

Reimu's got the fever.

I checked on her when I woke up this morning, but when I saw her as I came into my bedroom where she sleeps during the night, I knew right away she wasn't feeling well. I almost never get sick, but when I do, fevers and colds and stuff like that hit me hard. I've always wondered about that - I've got a pretty damn strong immune system 'cause I used to bite my fingernails all the time when I was a kid, so basically I was eating so much goddamn bacteria and shit from my nails that my body's pretty much built up a resistance to most microorganisms that might wreck someone else normally. But 'cause of that, my body's not experienced to actually being sick when it is, so I get hit pretty hard, like I mentioned. That's how I knew Reimu was sick.

That probably didn't make one damn ounce of sense to anyone but myself, heh. Well, it's not like anyone else is gonna read this.

Spent today staying at home and looking after Reimu, cooking up some soup and giving her some Advil like it says on the bottle. My mom taught me the trick to break fevers easily; most people put stuff like cold, damp towels on their foreheads whenever they have fevers, and while it does work, that kind of method isn't the most efficient. Instead, I had Reimu wear two extra thick winter sweaters I had in my closet, two pairs of track pants, two pairs of wool socks, and a scarf that my computer science tutor gave me for Christmas. I also stuck a heating pad underneath Reimu, between the cover and the mattress and turned it up mid-way. Basically, when you have a fever, the trick to break it quickly is to get yourself as warm as possible. Wear lots of heavy clothes and stay in bed with like, what, gallons of OJ or some sorta juice or whatnot next to you. What'll happen is that while you sleep (assuming you do fall asleep and don't do anything else), your body'll start sweating, drawing out heat from your body and cool your body down at the same time. I dunno if that's scientifically logical, but it makes sense to me, since whenever I've had fevers, I always feel strangely cold even if my forehead's hot enough to grill strips of bacon for breakfast. My fastest time breaking a fever's been exactly three hours - but that's nothing to boast about.

Luckily, seems like the fever's died down slightly. I'm actually writing this while sitting next to her - well, it's mine - bed. I can hear her breathing just barely through my scarf.

On to important news, and this time I dunno what to make of 'em. First, Steven.

Steven called me earlier today when I was fixing some chicken noodle soup for Reimu. I asked him what was up, and he said that he's started to see cracks everywhere. When I asked him about it, about these cracks, he said everything he sees has some sort of pattern of cracks on them, like black lines or some shit. Some of 'em even have dots, he said. He also said that when he touched one of those dots on one of his cups in his kitchen, it just fell apart. Completely broken. But what spooks him the most, he says, is that he sees the same lines and dots even on people and living things.

With the knowledge of what he did to that cup, we can only imagine what'll happen if he does the same to an actual person. What's that movie that said "there will be blood"? I don't fucking know, I haven't watched movies since junior year.

Second, Lauren. Jenna stopped by today to drop off some emergency supplies in case we all have to hole up at my place at some point, and she told me that Lauren was somehow starting to walk around by herself. Up til now, she'd been stuck in a wheelchair, not because she's handicapped but because she just can't see and Jenna insisted on taking Lauren where she needed to go. I know, a bit weird. But even though Lauren can't see, apparently she's somehow been able to navigate through Jenna's house on her own. Mind you she's still got bandages around her eyes. I asked Jenna what Lauren's thinking right now, but she said Lauren hasn't said anything today.

What the fuck is going on? This past week's been more eventful than the last eight years of my goddamn worthless life. This town is going to shit. Lauren loses her eyesight, only to regain some sort of sixth sense again, 's far as I can see. I find Reimu, who's sleeping in my bed with a fever. Some of us start seeing people turn into black shadowy zombie things, whatever the shit they are. Steven's got this weird fucking power that can break anything, apparently; hopefully he doesn't try it out anymore.

I can only assume this world of ours is starting to fall apart. Maybe it's because of the Corruption, which, like Reimu mentioned, is probably trying to go after her. No, not maybe, it's gotta be. There's nothing else that can explain why our world is, all of a sudden just disintegrating right in front of us, at least the ones who can see it happen, anyway. But why? How's the Corruption even managing to get here from Gensokyou? Actually, even before that, how is Gensokyou, this fantastical world that Reimu's apparently from, even related to our world to begin with? Reimu described Gensokyou as an alternate world. But alternate worlds would imply that there would only be one or the other, which clearly isn't the case here, because that would mean Reimu's a dimensional traveler, and she's already said she's not. Perhaps she meant to say that Gensokyou is connected to our world somehow? Okay, fine, let's assume that. Let's assume that Gensokyou is directly related to our world, Earth. Going with this assumption, it's possible that we have a scenario where one world can't exist without the other; a mutual symbiosis, kinda like those two fish species where one feeds off the dirt 'n stuff off the skin of the other. Because if we have that, then that alone can explain why our world is falling apart. Reimu got here because a friend of hers forced her here, which probably means the Corruption, by now, has already destroyed Gensokyou. But that wouldn't explain why our world hasn't been destroyed yet too. Because wouldn't a mutual symbiosis imply that if one half is gone, the other half would be gone too? Or does Gensokyou and our world work differently? Maybe, since Gensokyou's gone, our world is slowly deteriorating without its presence, a disturbance in the balance, I guess. I doubt I'll ever know the truth behind it, but it's something to think about.

Or, get this - maybe Gensokyou isn't done yet. Maybe Gensokyou still exists, still not destroyed completely - but the Corruption's infested it completely. Maybe, maybe the guy Reimu referred to as the one controlling the Corruption isn't letting Gensokyou get destroyed just yet - and instead, he's sending the Corruption somehow over to our side to look for Reimu. Maybe that's what's going on. Because he might know that destroying Gensokyou completely would mean that our world'll immediately die too, so he's letting us live on purpose. And if he's doing that, maybe the Corruption's seeping into our world and materializing in the forms of what's happening to us, what's happening to the people around us, and what's happening to our town. And as those zombies. Seriously, what the fuck is up with the zombies thing. It's so damn cliche, at least make it interesting.

I probably just jinxed it for us. Oh well, not like it matters when we're all gonna die anyway, right? Right.

I just can't stop thinking about what'll happen to the rest of us lot. Lauren 'n Steven's got hit. I feel like it's only a matter 'a time before the rest of us - me, Chuck, Big, 'n Jenna - get hit as well. By then, it's only gonna be a question of what we'll lose, what we'll gain - and what we'll turn into by that point.

I just hope I stay human. I'd hate to be anything else, because if I cease being human, that means I really am non-human, and all these years I've spent telling myself that I'm not quite the monster I thought I was would be stuffed down the drain.


	7. Break 7

**February 18th, 2013.**

Fuck my life. Reimu knows perfect English, and she didn't tell me until today.

And guess what? She read this entire thing.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...

Okay, lemme explain. Last night, as I was writing in this damned journal of mine, I fell asleep next to my bed. And, like I've mentioned like a thousand times already, Reimu's sleeping in my bed 'cause she was sick. She still is, kinda, but it's cleared up for the most part. Anyways, I have a bad tendency to fall asleep really easily the moment I do get sleepy. So once I drifted off, Reimu got up to use the bathroom, apparently, and when she came back, she noticed I was writing in my journal book. She used her power, I guess, to siphon how to speak and read English directly from me and used it to start reading my journal 'cause she was bored. Goddamn it, this is what I get for not going to sleep properly, fuck!

Now I feel like an even bigger loser, since I now know that Reimu knows what I've been thinking all this time. If Reimu hadn't convinced me to keep writing in this journal, I'd've gotten that last can of WD-40 of mine and torched this shit in my front yard.

She thanked me for thinking that she was beautiful.

My first thought was, "any straight guy who saw you would've thought the same, so why only say that to me?"

Moving on.

Because she had read this without my permission, I forced Reimu to answer some questions that I had been brewing up in my head over the night. Mainly, her power. She says that her powers mainly come from her ability to call upon divine spirits that empower her with divine energy and whatnot; plus, it seems she's already got a huge magic energy reserve within herself as well. Apparently, in Gensokyou, lots of people had "manipulation abilities", or some sort of ability that they had that was relatively unique to themselves - Reimu's is to fly, which, all things considered, seems pretty damn normal. I dunno, if you ask me, I guess...I guess I was expecting something a little bit fancier than that. But flying is cool too.

So I asked her how she's able to use magic here. I mean, if you think about it, her power to summon divine spirits would imply that her gods need to be in the same plane of existence for her power to work in the first place; by this, I'm saying that I didn't get how she'd be able to use that power here on Earth, where her god or gods don't exist in. She said that normally, she wouldn't've been able to use the full extent of her power under normal circumstances, but because our world is slowly been overrun by the Corruption as well, the magic of both the Corruption and Gensokyou that it took over is leaking into our world, making it possible for her to use magic like she's used to.

And then I asked her if there was any way for me to gain some sort of power too.

'Cause, y'know, I wanna go around to fuck shit up too.

God, I sounded like such a pussy, asking that way...

Surprisingly enough, Reimu said I could. Since I had told her what was going on with Lauren and Steven, she said that she actually expected us to develop supernatural tendencies or abilities soon, all of us, as a direct result of the Corruption's influence. We _are _the only ones who can see what's going on with this town, after all. While that gets me pretty excited, I'm not too thrilled by the fact that it's the Corruption that's giving us this power. Literally, it sounds like it's gonna overtake us too.

Reimu told me not to sweat the small details.

Can't help it here if weird shit's been happening in our town lately, y'know?

It's been bothering me now. I've always thought that I have some sort of sixth sense. It's really hard to put into words, but I can feel my senses go hazy for a moment whenever my supposed "sixth sense" starts acting up. The best way I can describe it is like this: my mind blanks out for a split second, my neck kinda trembles like I'm having a seizure, and I can't breathe for that split second. It's happened lots of times on random occasions, but it told me stuff that I didn't quite understand or shit I didn't give a shit about, like "there's a car coming around that corner" or "brace yourself, you've still got a little stage fright".

This morning, I walked into my bedroom to take Reimu's temperature, and as soon as I looked at her, it happened.

And it told me, "You know her."

How do I know her? I don't even fucking remember her.

Other than the fact that she resembles my sister.

Actually, that might be it.

Now that I think about it, she's...

Oh my God, she looks exactly like Saya.

What the fuck? Am I fuckin' trippin'?

No, no I'm not. She's what Saya would've looked like if she were Reimu's age.

What the shit?

But wait, what's that gotta do with me knowing her before? Just because she looks exactly like my sister doesn't mean jack shit about whether or not I knew her any time before three days ago.

How do I know her? Really, how do I?

This is gonna bother me for a long fucking time again, isn't it? Except this time, I bet it'll matter in a way I don't know yet. It's always like that, you always expect one thing and something different gets pulled on your ass. So this time, I won't expect anything and see what happens.

How the fuck do I know her? And why's this gotta happen to me, man? I just turned around randomly just now, and _now_ this shit hits me?

Really, fuck my life.

But this time, I know that my retarded "sixth sense" thing is right. But I have no way to prove it to myself.


	8. Break 8

**February 25th, 2013.**

It's been a week. Lots happened. And oh fuckin' boy, lots more'll happen too. But for now, deciding where to start is kicking my ass.

Let's start with Reimu. Uhhhhh...how should I put this...

She 'n I are going out. I guess, for lack of a better term.

Well...that's only on my end. Ever since she got better and started to walk around 'n such, she's been doing everything with me. Cooking, shopping, just hangin' out - I've never had the balls yet to really ask her if she likes me back. Hey, I wouldn't mind. Personally. But...given that I know for a fact we're all probably aren't gonna last for much longer, I can't feel as happy as I would otherwise.

Then again, heh, if I wasn't livin' in a dying world like mine, I most likely woulda never met a girl like Reimu anyway. I can't help but laugh that life is so fucking cruel to me, that once I actually score in life, it turns around 'n says "NOPE, BITCH!" and makes me remember I can't keep the good times rollin' for as long as I'd like to - or as long as normal people would.

Still, for now, or, I should say, _up_ 'til now, I've been enjoying what I've got. I've never had the wonderful experience of living with a girl like Reimu. Like, fucking hell, she's everything a guy could ask for - 'course, that's a given, since I just mentioned how she does everything with me. I'd always promised myself that if I ever got a girl, I'd actually treat her like a damn girlfriend, y'know. Not like the fucking date scramble that's the pure social essence of godforsaken high school where the only thing guys look for is gettin' laid at parties and the only thing girls look for is gossiping about how many boyfriends they've managed to dump in three months. It fuckin' disgusted me. Because that tells me that humanity doesn't deserve my pity when this world finally does go under, when our world's filled with shitheads like them who treat people basically as mere commodities, as if we treat each other like shitty sex slaves to each other. Are we the Confederacy again? Have people just write that they've done a good thing in the history books and keep goin' around still gangbangin' each other and callin' each other _frieeeeeeeeeeeeeends_.

Fucking facepalm. I'm so glad I wasn't born fuckin' Downie like the rest of America's teenage mentality. The vast majority of it, anyway.

And when I said "everything a guy could ask for", I meant a guy like me, someone who actually _wants_ to take the time to appreciate someone for who they are. Not because she looks like the kinda girl you'd like to fuck.

Not _just_ because, actually. I can't deny that Reimu is better than any girl I've seen. But I'm fuckin' biased as shit, since Reimu's exactly my kinda girl.

I think I'll take the Creepiest Faggot Award for 2013, thank you very much.

Enough about Reimu; even I think I'm starting to obsess over her too much. The main reason why I haven't written for the past week is because all of us gained some sort of ability or power, just as Reimu had predicted, and we've been practicing them and learning about 'em as much as we can, since obviously whenever you get a power so randomly, you just don't stare at it and say "cool", you use it to blow shit up.

Let's start with Lauren, since she was the first one to get her power. By the way, we decided to give our abilities 'n stuff names so we could reference them better. Lauren called hers "Ping". She says that despite her physical blindness (she still can't actually see anything with her eyes and still has those bandages over them), she can "see" what she calls outlines of any non-sentient object, basically anything that isn't technically living and is just existing. On top of that, her heart, every time it beats, sends out some sort of detection wave all around her like a radar tower that picks up on any other heart, and if a living thing is within her range, she'll know exactly where it is, its position, its medical condition, and shit like that. She says for now, her detection range is up to fifty meters, but because when her power first developed her initial range was only ten meters, her ability'll gain more power as time goes on. When she first told us about her Ping ability, Jenna was curious if Lauren could start "seeing" with her eyes again and took off her bandages, and we saw that Lauren's eyes were real different. Before, Lauren had normal pale blue eyes, before her Ping started to kick in. Now, it's really weird. If you look into her eyes, it's like you're reading a map. It's like Ping's turned her eyes into some sort of heads-up display, and her eyes...I don't know how to describe this...they kind of flash every time her heart beats. It makes sense, since her heart's like a sensor and its heartbeat's relaying information up to her eyes. That time, when we were all crowded around Lauren checking out her eyes, there were six green blips real close to her center pupil. It's pretty damn clear that Ping's supposed to work as a detection tool. I'm guessing that if someone that Lauren doesn't know or deems an enemy or hostile will show up a different color, maybe red or some shit. And since it doesn't seem like Lauren's affected by whether or not her eyes are covered up, her eyes'll come in handy if we need to know if more of those Corruption zombie things show up. Though, she prefers to still have her eyes covered anyway, she's not too comfortable with her eyes exposed, I guess. I wouldn't like it either if my power was turned on all the time with no way to shut it off voluntarily.

Jenna's got two powers that I can't understand why she has or why they even exist together, held by one person, and by Jenna of all people. One of them actually makes sense - she's got healing powers. She's been testing out her powers on stray cats and dogs that sometimes lie around on the streets in our town that're hit by cars or end up getting hurt somehow, and she's been able to bring them back every time, even if they're right about to die. It's like she's a living, walking Full Revive (it's super effective! sorry had to do that, pls dont kill me). But she can't heal Lauren's physical blindness, even though she managed to restore a stray dog's eyesight that had cataracts. We're thinkin' that Jenna's healing can take care of anything that's physically afflicted but not magically afflicted, like Lauren's ability, since we're guessing that Lauren's physical blindness is due to her Ping ability. I think it's still rather comforting to know that we have a dedicated medic among us. Jenna's been joking around how if we ever have limbs blown off somehow, we need only to go see her. Goddamn it, she's gone morbid, I swear. I just hope it doesn't get the better of her. Now her _other _power is what really fucks up reason 'n shit, and no one knows why she has this. Jenna can make anything out of metal explode. All she needs to do is concentrate on a metal object, like a coin or a metal zipper, and snap her fingers, and boom, there it goes. Granted, if she does this on a small object, it won't really do much, as long as she just makes it pop on a whim. But if she really concentrates, she can turn pennies into improvised fragmentation grenades, basically. Don't get me started on what she can do to cars and other shit like that. So now ever since Jenna's figured out her power, which, fittingly enough, she calls "Boom", she's been carrying around a bunch of pennies on her. She's trained herself to the point where all she needs to do is pull out a penny, flick it towards something, and snap her fingers, and boom goes the penny.

At least Chuck's powers make sense. Chuck didn't know what to call his power or whatever, so we call it Crank. Basically, whenever Chuck uses his power, everything about him physically and mentally becomes stronger. Kinda like an Indian Superman. Sorry, that's the best kind of analogy I could make. I mean, he's a fuckin' health nut, so it only makes sense that his ability's related to his physique in some way. The only other notable feature's that the longer he keeps Crank going, the faster 'n stronger he gets, but he can't keep it going for too long, otherwise his body can't handle it. I'm not exactly sure if it's magical energy that he's got or just a physical enhancement, since there's a difference between the two. I asked Reimu about it, and she reckons it's just a physical change. She thinks Jenna's Boom is closer to actual magic than any that's been mentioned thus far.

Personally, I think Big's ability's the most interesting from a scientific standpoint. He's now basically a walking supercomputer, and he can actually make programs and algorithms with his bare hands. That might sound a little vague so lemme explain: whenever he uses his ability to make a program, the code actually writes itself in front of him for everyone to see in blue writing. I mean, Big knew Java and a little C before, but now he knows every single computer language known to fuckin' man, plus he's actually made his own for the hell of it that he uses for himself. But it doesn't stop there - he can literally walk up to any electronic he sees and directly hack into it if he wants to, and he's gotten a little bit of control over electricity. Only natural we call his power Hack, and Big's pretty cool about it. Basically, if anything's science-related or a problem requires a bit of science that no one else knows, we just call Big and tell him to Hack it, and boom, problem solved.

Steven...is the most dangerous now. I mentioned that he was beginning to see weird shit like a week ago, right? Well, now he's developed a self-improvised theory of what his power exactly is. He can kill anything with those lines and dots that he sees. He's tested it on lots of things - those zombie thingies, random nonliving objects like rocks and small trees. He can just about kill anything, theoretically. Although he mostly uses his pocket knife, he doesn't require it to kill; all he needs to do is just trace the lines or stab the dots he sees with anything, even his own fingers, and they just fall apart. That's what he says, anyway. But he says it's a horrible power, since everyday he's gotta wake up to a world that's fuckin' covered in lines and dots everywhere, and he fucking hates it. Says it makes him sick and dizzy all the time, and kinna like Lauren, he can't turn his power off, so it's not like he's got a choice. His eyes bleed too, and apparently whenever they start bleeding, his power gets stronger. I've already seen his eyes bleed a couple times now, and he says he sometimes wakes up to blood in his eyes. He reckons that he'll lose his fuckin' sanity before long unless we can find some way to prevent it from getting worse. But we all know that most likely, we're helpless to save him. Jenna's tried to revert the process with her healing power, but like I said before, her healing only affects physical stuff and not injuries that're inflicted by abilities or are innately magic-based. If you look at Steven now, he seems like his usual quiet self like me, but as his best friend, I can tell he's starting to lose it. It's gonna be hard for me to watch him like that, like he's slowly being driven mad. What's that disease called where the shit eats away at your brain matter or something runs you insane until it eats too much brain for you to function properly? Was it mad cow? Or something else? I dunno; either way, Steven won't last long, as much as I hate to say it. He'll probably be the first one among us to go, after Martin of course, unless we can find something that'll help alleviate his situation. I guess in this fucked up world of ours, the stronger your power, the stronger your curse.

Now, for me. Mine's pretty simple - at least, it _was_ at first. I call it Snipe. My reflexes've gone through the goddamn roof; now, whenever I react to something, it's literally like everything else is going in slow-mo. It's almost too easy - I had Reimu test my reflexes, and it feels like I have an hour to dodge those danmaku things she throws at me. That, and it seems my shot with firearms is perfect, and even though I've had a good shot before this, it was nowhere near the level that I can shoot now._  
_

But it almost seems like I'm different from the rest. While everyone else got like powers 'n shit only, I got something else. The day after that I first discovered my "Snipe", I woke up to a really, really fucking hot sensation in my right arm, like someone shoved a big ass poker that's been sittin' in the oven for six hours at 600C right into my bone. It was goddamn painful, and Reimu saw me holding my arm and groanin' and asked me what was wrong, and I told her that it felt like my arm was just 'bout to burn right off. She told me that it very well may be magic or Corruption energy and told me to focus on my right arm, to try to draw out the burning feeling in it into my hand or at least out of it. I didn't know what she meant at first, so I just tensed my arm up and willed the pain into my hand, since I didn't know what else to do. Sure enough, something warped into view in my hand in a flash of fire, and even though instinctively I was going to pull my hand back, I instead grabbed it. Actually, no, scratch that, I got _forced_ to grab it. It's almost like I had no choice - I fuckin' don't know, it just made me, end of story. I thought I'd burn my damn hand off, but I couldn't let go of it, but soon the fire disappeared to reveal a tomahawk.

Like, what the fuck? Of all things whatever stupid power I've developed because of whatever's happening to our world, why did I get a tomahawk? I stood there, with Reimu with me, looking like an absolute autist dumbfuck staring at the thing in my hand. It's sitting next to me on my desk as I'm writing this, btw. But when I first held it, it was still smoldering with embers, and flakes of fire were still kinda whiffing off it. Lemme tell you, I've only ever seen tomahawks in history, when the Native Americans (don't know why people still insist to call 'em "Indians", 'cause what're we gonna differentiate between Chuck and a real Native American?) when around decapping people with 'em. But now, I guess I have to find out how to use it. I'm better with a knife, since I've practiced with Steven's butterfly knife and his other sets of tracker knives all the time back in high school. I know my way around knives, but a fucking tomahawk? So am I supposed to wear a goddamn headdress 'n hold pow-wow's 'n shit with everyone jumpin' 'n hollerin' around a bonfire? Fuck dude.

I got it four days ago. And since then, I've been playing around with it. I asked Reimu if she knew anything about this, but she said no. This is what I know so far 'bout it:

This is the obvious part, but it's got fire qualities to it. I feel like such an idiot just for writing that, but for the sake of clarity, I'll go ahead and repeat it anyway. But it seems that's as far as its fire traits will go. I've tried tinkering around with it ta see if I could control fire, y'know, with the thing, but it doesn't seem like it's capable of that. I don't know, actually. I dunno if it's just me who can't control its fire, or the tomahawk itself not being able to spew out fire or shit like that, or if only burning things when you touch it to other shit is as far as its fire traits go. If I don't know, who knows. The one thing I have figured out with it, though, is that I can set the temperature of the blade. Seems like it can go anywhere from room temperature to 400 Fahrenheit, and the great thing is, I'm not hurt by the heat at all, which was something that I was worried about, whether or not I'd get annoying ass burns. But catch this: Reimu isn't affected either. While my other friends can feel the heat, she alone can't and seems to share the same immunity as I do. Now, you might wonder if it's because of the fact that Reimu's already a magic-based fighter to begin with, right? That's what I thought too, but Reimu's just as susceptible to everyone else's abilities, so why isn't she hurt by my tomahawk's heat? I even cranked it up to max, and she just sat there looking confused as fuck. Waaaahhhh...I don't get it. Maybe I'll find out later in the future.

On to the next thing. The tomahawk acts like a boomerang. I found that out the hard way - I was practicing throwing it onto my couch one day to get a hang of throwin' the thing in the off chance that I had to, and I tossed it a little more forcefully than I had before, and Reimu came down the stairs to talk to me, and right when I turned my head to reply, my tomahawk straight up bashes me with the butt of the handle right in the left cheek. Goddamn it, Reimu was just breaking her lungs apart laughing. I hadn't felt that embarrassed in God knows how long. But once I got the hang of it, it's actually pretty easy. It goes out 'bout around 30 meters before it comes back, 50 meters if I throw it as hard as I can. I just need to remember to catch it again, otherwise Reimu'll crack up at me gettin' smacked in the face again by my own weapon. But that's not all - I found this out by accident, but I was practicing throwing it another day, and I threw it at max power to find out that it came back to me with a whole trashcan. Again, imagine me lying on my back in the middle of the park that I had found Reimu in with a whole buncha shit and my tomahawk in my hand. Goddamn, I was pissed. But it gave me an idea, so I threw it at my alarm clock at home, and sure enough, it dragged the alarm clock with it for me to catch. So it's like a fishhook too. I just hope I don't reel in anythin' I don't mean to - actually, maybe I should try it out on Reimu, hehehehehehe.

For now, that's all I've found out. Maybe we'll develop our powers more. I'm thankful I've finally gotten some sort of power that I've always secretly wanted, but now that I've got it, I'm not as happy as I thought I'd be. In retrospect, though, I'm not surprised that I feel that way. Because if you do gain a power like I have in a situation like this, it's almost as if it comes as no surprise to begin with, y'know? I just have a really bad feeling that either we'll end up dead 'cuza our own powers or us goin' mad 'cuza this Corruption shit. Oh well, everyone's gotta die sometime, right? At least I'm gonna die with the knowledge that I've got an awesome power that no one else's got. Plus Reimu too.

...but if I can help it, I'd rather Reimu get out of all this shit alive. She alone among all of us deserves to live after all this, for what she's suffered.

...on second thought, I should honestly talk to her about that. I...I'm starting to have second thoughts right as I wrote that.

By the way, I forgot to mention the name of my tomahawk. Apparently, on the handle, it says "Hell's Retriever".


End file.
